


After 01x06 (The Stork Job)

by PseudoLeigha



Series: (More) 2AM Conversations [6]
Category: Leverage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 14:34:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6524128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudoLeigha/pseuds/PseudoLeigha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot and Hardison discuss Parker and the Serbian Orphan Debacle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After 01x06 (The Stork Job)

“Hey, man,” Hardison returned from the restroom and flopped into an uncomfortable plastic airport chair, next to the pillar Eliot had taken to supporting.

“Hardison.” Eliot wasn’t really in the mood for talking. He hadn’t slept for more than half an hour at a time since they arrived in Serbia (and then only when Parker, who was the only one he trusted to be as alert and paranoid as himself, was both present and awake), and he wasn’t about to until they were safely back in the US. Too many old enemies here for his tastes, not to mention all the new ones they just made.

Nate and Sophie were passed out on the floor. Nate looked like a bum, and even Sophie looked a bit worse for wear after ten hours of dealing with the World Health Organization.

Parker, he thought, was napping as well, curled up in a chair with her head on her knees and her hands locked around her ankles. But it was hard to tell. She could just be ignoring them and dealing with her own orphan-related issues.

They were all pretending to be travelling alone, but thankfully had all settled at their gate, so he could keep an eye on all of them at once.

“Damn these uncomfortable seats!” the younger man grumbled. “No wi-fi, fucking European outlets, and can’t even take a damn nap in a damn chair!”

 _Really?_ Eliot had no sympathy for him. “Go sleep on the floor.” He nodded at the older members of their little team, then smirked, imagining Hardison trying to sleep in a chair like Parker.

“’m not gonna sleep on the damn _floor_ ,” the hacker said petulantly. “It’s _dirty_.”

“Then stop whining,” Eliot growled back. His patience with the younger man was running very, very short.

The job had not gone well, and so far as Eliot was concerned, Hardison was largely to blame, given that _he_ was the one who convinced Crazy Parker that she could and should save those orphans. Normally Eliot had a healthy amount of respect for the little thief, who was, at least when they were on a job, his favorite team-mate. She might be somewhat literal and completely socially inept, but she could take care of herself better than the rest of them, and after she reconciled herself to a chain of command, she hadn’t been anything less than coldly professional, consistently competent when it came to doing her job (which definitely did _not_ include trying to elicit information from a mark), and generally a _predictable_ kind of insane.

Hardison had ruined that, getting their most emotionally unstable team mate emotionally involved, despite her repeated efforts to make the smart, responsible choice and stay out of it. The worst part was Sophie being all encouraging about it. Nate was pissed at first because Parker was endangering herself and the team, but he had a soft spot for kids, and Sophie had prattled on at him about emotional development and progress until he shut up. Eliot had even heard her congratulating Hardison afterward on getting through to the girl.

“Hey, um, Eliot, man,” Hardison interrupted the older man’s musings. “You okay?”

Eliot raised an eyebrow at him.

“It’s just, y’know, you been real quiet since we got those kids out. You, uh, you’re not mad at Parker, are you?”

“No, I’m not mad at _Parker_.”

“Oh, ah… you sure, man? ‘Cos you sound kinda mad.”

“ _Parker_ wasn’t the one who insisted we had to save those kids.” Hardison looked baffled, so Eliot elaborated. “Yeah, she ran off to do it herself, but in the beginning, she told you and Nate and all of us that we had to walk away. That was the right call. The smart call. And then _you_ had to go putting crazy ideas in her head about bein’ able to save them. _You_ were the one who said we couldn’t leave them, and then agreed to do exactly that. What the hell were you thinkin’ _man_?”

“I was _thinkin’_ we’d come back, like Nate said!”

“Not that, moron! Why’d you go and make her get emotionally involved in the first place?”

“What? You think those kids deserved to stay in that hell hole?”

Eliot almost laughed at the naivety of that question. “You can’t save everyone, Hardison. I _think_ you shouldn’t go around givin’ Parker crazy ideas, tellin’ her we’re more than a team an’ makin’ her wanna play hero!”

“You’ just as crazy as she is if you think she wasn’t already ‘emotionally involved,’” the hacker said with a snort.

“An’ she was doin’ a damn good job of keepin’ a lid on it until you came along!” he growled back.

“She _stabbed_ an _arms dealer_ with a _fork_!”

“Yeah, an’ don’t think I won’t be havin’ words with Sophie about that.”

“With _Sophie_? What the hell, man? You not gonna hold Parker responsible even for that?”

“Were you listenin’ to the same conversation I was? Sophie shoulda just walked her through getting’ out of there, let her take his wallet an’ run, and instead she pushed her into tryin’ to talk to the damn guy! People are her thing, an’ she’s known Parker as long as I have. She shoulda known better!” Eliot would be having words with Parker, too, but Hardison didn’t need to know that.

“Un-friggin-believable, man. You the one who called her twenty pounds of crazy on our first job.” There was a note of accusation in Hardison’s tone.

“Yeah, I did,” Eliot admitted. “Because anyone who’s that excited to jump off a damn roof’s gotta be missin’ a few screws. But she’s the best in the goddamn business, an’ every other job we’ve done she pulled off smooth. I can work with crazy as long as she does her damn job, and she can’t do that with you whisperin’ in her ear putin’ crazy ideas in her head.”

“Y’know what? Fuck you, man. I was just tryin’a help. ‘S not right, goin’ aroun’ tellin’ herself she doesn’t care when obviously, she does.”

“Stop. Just… stop. She doesn’t need you to try an’ fix her.” As far as Eliot was concerned, Parker’s mental health was her own problem, and until Hardison started messing with her head, he’d been convinced that her compartmentalization was good enough to let her deal with it on her own time, and not let the crazy interfere with their work.

“I wasn’t –”

“No. You do whatever you want, say whatever you want when you’re home and safe and playin’ fuckin’ video games or whatever, but when you’re on a job, you do your job an’ let her do hers and don’t go playin with her emotions an’ makin’ a big fuckin’ mess for the rest of us t’ clean up.” _And by us I mean me_ , Eliot added silently. With his luck, he _would_ be the one who got stuck dealing with the crazy thief in a full-on mental breakdown one of these days.

Apparently Hardison had nothing to say to that, because he stalked off down the hallway toward the closed and empty food court. He didn’t get very far before their boarding call was announced, first in Romanian, then in English, but he made his point. Eliot didn’t bring it back up once they were on the plane – a feat made easier by the fact that they were not seated together – and Hardison, for his part, seemed bent on ignoring the older man until they touched down in London.

The only redeeming aspect of the flight was Parker swapping her ticket with the man seated next to Eliot and whispering in his ear, “Sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

He did. Crazy or not, he trusted her enough for that. They were, after all, a little more than a team.


End file.
